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THE 
CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

JULY, 1919 



BY 



CARL SANDBURG 



WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

By WALTER LIPPMANN 



m 



NEW YORK 

HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 

1919 






COPYRIGHT, I919, BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. 



CEC I2ii)i9 



©C1.A559013 




INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

To record the background of an event, Infinitely more 
disgraceful than that Mexican banditry or Red Terror 
about which we are all so virtuously Indignant, is suffi- 
cient reason for republishing these articles by Carl Sand- 
burg. They are first hand, and they are sympathetic, 
and they will move those who will allow themselves to 
be moved. 

Moved not alone to Indignation, though that is needed, 
but to thought. It Is not possible, I think, to examine 
this record without concluding that the race problem as 
we know it is really a by-product of our planless, dis- 
ordered, bedraggled, drifting democracy. Until we have 
learned to house everybody, employ everybody at decent 
wages In a self-respecting status, guarantee his civil liber- 
ties, and bring education and play to him, the bulk of our 
talk about "the race problem" will remain a sinister myth- 
ology. In a dirty civilization the relation between black 
men and white will be a dirty one. In a clean civilization 
the two races can conduct their business together cleanly, 
and not until then. 

Certainly the Idea must go that in order to segregate 
the races biologically It Is necessary to degrade and ter- 
rorize one of them. For those who degrade and terror- 
ize are inevitably themselves degraded and terror- 
stricken. It is only the parvenue, the snob, the coward 
who is forever proclaiming his superiority. And by 

iii 



iv INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

proclaiming It he evokes Imitation In his victim. Hence 
the peculiar oppressiveness of recently oppressed peoples 
in Europe. Hence the Negro who desires to be an imita- 
tion white man. Hence again the determination to sup- 
press the Negro who attempts to imitate the white man. 
For so long as the status of the white man is In every way 
superior to that of the colored, the advancement of the 
colored man can mean nothing but an attempt to share the 
white man's social privileges. From this arises that ter- 
rible confusion between the idea of social equality and the 
idea of social mixture. 

Since permanent degradation Is unthinkable, and amal- 
gamation undesirable both for blacks and whites, the Ideal 
would seem to lie in what might be called race parallel- 
ism. Parallel lines may be equally long and equally 
straight; they do not join except in infinity, which is 
further away than anyone need worry about just now. 
We shall have to work out with the Negro a relationship 
which gives him complete access to all the machinery of 
our common civilization, and yet allows him to live so 
that no Negro need dream of a white heaven and of 
bleached angels. Pride of race will come to the Negro 
when a dark skin is no longer associated with poverty, 
Ignorance, misery, terror and Insult. When this pride 
arises every white man in America will be the happier 
for It. He will be able then, as he is not now, to enjoy 
the finest quality of civilized living — ^the fellowship of 
different men. 

Walter Lippman. 
Whitestone, Long Island. 
August 26, 19 19. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ^^^^ 

I.— The Chicago Race Riots i 

II. — The Background 5 

III. — The Negro Migration 9 

IV.— Real Estate I3 

V. — Demand for Negro Labor I7 

VI. — New Industrial Opportunities 22 

VII. — After Each Lynching 26 

VIIL— Trades for Colored Women 31 

IX. — Negroes and Rising Rents 38 

X. — Unions and the Color Line 44 

XL — About Lynchings 5i 

XII.— Negro Crime Tales 55 

XIII.— Colored Gamblers 59 

XIV.— An Official of the Packers 63 

XV. — Mr. Julius Rosenwald Interviewed 66 

XVL— For Federal Action 69 



I 

THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

The so-called race riots In Chicago during the last 
week of July, 19 19, started on a Sunday at a bathing 
beach. A colored boy swam across an Imaginary segre- 
gation line. White boys threw rocks at him and knocked 
him off a raft. He was drowned. Colored people rushed 
to a policeman and asked for the arrest of the boys throw- 
ing stones. The policeman refused. As the dead body 
of the drowned boy was being handled, more rocks were 
thrown, on both sides. The policeman held on to his 
refusal to make arrests. Fighting then began that spread 
to all the borders of the Black Belt. The score at the 
end of three days was recorded as twenty negroes dead, 
fourteen white men dead, and a number of negro houses 
burned. 

The riots furnished an excuse for every element of 
Gangland to go to It and test their prowess by the most 
ancient ordeals of the jungle. There was one section of 
the city that supplied more white hoodlums than any 
other section. It was the district around the stockyards 
and packing houses. 

I asked Maclay Hoyne, states attorney of Cook 
County, *'Does it seem to you that you get more tough 
birds from out around the stockyards than anywhere else 
in Chicago?" And he answered that more bank robbers, 
payroll bandits, automobile bandits, highwaymen and 
strong-arm crooks come from this particular district than 



2 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

any other that has come to his notice during seven years 
of service as chief prosecuting official. 

And I recalled that a few years ago a group of people 
from the University of Chicago came over into the stock- 
yards district and made a survey. They went into one 
neighborhood and asked at every house about how the 
people lived — and died. They found that seven times as 
many white hearses haul babies along the streets here as 
over in the lake shore district a mile east. Their state- 
ment of scientific fact was that the infant mortality was 
seven times higher here proportionately, than a mile to 
the east in a district where housing and wages are differ- 
ent. 

So on the one hand we have blind lawless government 
failing to function through policemen Ignorant of Lincoln, 
the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and a 
theory sanctioned and baptized in a storm of red blood. 
And on the other hand we have a gaunt involuntary pov- 
erty from which Issues the hoodlum. 
n/ At least three conditions marked the events of violence 
in Chicago in July, 19 19, and gave the situation a char- 
acter essentially different from the backgrounds of other 
riots. Here are factors that give the Chicago flare-up 
historic import: 

1. The Black Belt population of 50,000 in Chicago 
was more than doubled during the war. No new houses 
or tenements were built. Under pressure of war industry 
the district, already notoriously overcrowded and swarm- 
ing with slums, was compelled to have and hold in Its 
human dwelling apparatus more than twice as many peo- 
ple as It held before the war. 

2. The Black Belt of Chicago is probably the strong- 
est effective unit of political power, good or bad, in 



THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 3 

America. It connects directly with a city administration 
decisive in its refusal to draw the color line, and a mayor 
whose opponents failed to defeat him with the covert 
circulation of the epithet of "nigger lover." To such a 
community the black doughboys came back from France 
and the cantonment camps. Also it is known that hun- 
dreds — it may be thousands — have located in Chicago in 
the hope of permanent jobs and homes in preference to 
returning south of Mason and Dixon's line, where neither 
a tvorld war for democracy, nor the Croix de Guerre, nor 
three gold chevrons, nor any number of wound stripes, 
assures them of the right to vote or to have their votes 
counted or to participate riesponslbly In the elective deter- 
minations of the American republic. 

3. Thousands of white men and thousands of colored 
men stood together during the riots, and through the pub- 
lic statements of white and colored officials of the Stock- 
yards Labor Council asked the public to witness that 
they were shaking hands as "brothers" and could not be 
counted on for any share in the mob shouts and ravages. 
This was the first time in any similar crisis in an Ameri- 
can community that a large body of mixed nationalities 
and races — Poles, Negroes, Lithuanians, Italians, Irish- 
men, Germans, Slovaks, Russians, Mexicans, Yankees, 
Englishmen, Scotchmen — proclaimed that they were or- 
ganized and opposed to violence between white union 
men and colored union men. 

In any American city where the racial situation Is criti- 
cal at this moment, the radical and active factors prob- 
ably are (i) housing (2) politics and war psychology 
and (3) organization of labor. 

/ The articles that follow are reprints from the pages 
'of the Chicago Daily News, which assigned the writer to 



4 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

investigate the situation three weeks before the riots 
began. Publication of the articles had proceeded two 
weeks and were approaching the point where a program 
of constructive recommendations would have been proper 
when the riots broke and as usual nearly everybody was 
more interested in the war than how it got loose. 

The arrangement of the material herewith is all 
rather hit or miss, with the stress often in the wrong 
place, as in much newspaper writing. However, because 
of the swift movement of events at this hour and because 
items of Information and views of trends here have been 
asked for In telegrams, letters and phone calls from a 
number of thoughtful people, they are made conveniently 
available for such service as they are worth. 



II 

THE BACKGROUND 

Chicago's *'black belt," so called, to-day holds at least 
125,000 persons. This Is double the number that same 
district held five years ago, when the world war began. 

Chicago Is probably the third city In the United States 
in number of colored persons and, at the lowest, ranks as 
fifth In this regard, according to estimates of Frederick 
Rex, municipal reference librarian. The four cities that 
may possibly exceed Chicago In this population group 
are New York, which had 91,709 at the last census; Bal- 
timore, with 84,749; Philadelphia, with 84,459, ^^^ 
Washington, with 94,466. The colored population In all 
these cities has increased since the last census. 

New Orleans, which had 89,262, has decreased instead 
of gaining, and the same will apply to three other large 
southern cities where the colored population at the begin- 
ing of the war was slightly above 50,000 and just about 
equal to that of Chicago. These are Birmingham, Ala., 
Atlanta, Ga., and Memphis, Tenn., all reported to have 
decreased, while Chicago has gained. 

During Interviews with some forty persons more or 
less expert on the question the lowest estimate of the 
present colored population of Chicago was 100,000 and 
the highest 200,000. The figure most commonly agreed 
on was 125,000. There Is no doubt that upward of 150- 
000 have arrived here. The number that have departed 
for other points is unknown. 

5 



6 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

Under the pressure of the biggest over-crowding prob- 
lem any race or nation has faced in a Chicago neighbor- 
hood, the population of the district is spilling over, oi: 
rather Is being Irresistibly squeezed out into other resi- 
dence districts. 

Such is the Immediately large and notable fact touching 
what Is generally called "the race problem." 

Other facts pertaining to the situation, each one indi- 
cating a trend of Importance, are the following: 

Local draft board No. 4 In a district surrounding State 
and 35th streets, containing 30,000 persons, of whom 
90 per cent are colored, registered upward of 9,000 and 
sent 1,850 colored men to cantonments. Of these 1,850 
there were only 125 rejections. On Nov. 11, when the 
armistice was declared, this district had 7,832 men passed 
by examiners and ready for the call to the colors. So It 
is clear that in one neighborhood are thousands of strong 
young men who have been talking to each other on topics 
more or less Intimately related to the questions, "What 
are we ready to die for? Why do we live? What Is 
democracy? What Is the meaning of freedom; of self- 
determination?" 

In barber shop windows and In cigar stores and haber- 
dasheries are helmets, rifles, cartridges, canteens and 
haversacks and photographs of negro regiments that 
were sent to France. 

Walk around this district and talk with the black folk 
and leaders of the black folk. Ask them, "What about 
the future of the colored people?" The reply that comes 
most often and the thought that seems uppermost Is: 
"We made the supreme sacrifice; they didn't need any 
work or fight law for us ; our record, like Old Glory, the 
flag we love because it stands for our freedom, hasn't got 



THE BACKGROUND 7 

a spot on it; we 'come clean'; now we want to see our 
country live up to the constitution and the declaration of 
independence." 

Soldiers, ministers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, ma- 
chinists, teamsters, day laborers — this is the inevitable 
outstanding thought they offer when consulted about to- 
morrow, next week, next year or the next century for the 
colored race in America, f There is no approaching the 
matters of housing, jobs or political relations of the col- 
ored people to-day without taking consideration of their 
own vivid conception of what they consider their unques- 
tioned Americanism. 

They had one bank three years ago. Now they have 
five. Three co-operative societies to run stores are form- 
ing. Five new weekly papers, two new monthly maga- 
zines, seven drug stores, one hospital — all of these have 
come since Junius B. Wood's encyclopedic recital of 
negro activities in Chicago appeared in The Daily News 
in December, 19 16. Also since then a life insurance 
company and a building and loan association have been 
organized. In one district where there were counted 
sixty-nine neighborhood agencies of demoralization there 
have been established within two years under negro aus- 
pices, a cafe, a drug store, a laundry, a bakery, a shoe 
repair shop, a tailor shop, a fish market, a dry goods 
store — all told, twenty-four constructive agencies entered 
the contest against sixty-nine of the destructive kind. 

The colored people of Chicago seem to have more big 
organizations with fewer press agents and less publicity 
than any other group in the city. They have, for instance, 
*the largest single protestant church membership in North 
America in the Olivet Baptist church at South Park 
lavenue and East 31st street. It has more than 8,500 



8 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

members. The "miscellaneous" local of the Meat Cut- 
ters and Butcher Workmen's union, at 43d and State 
streets, reports that upward of 10,000 colored workmen 
are affiliated. The People's Movement club has moved 
into a $50,000 clubhouse, has 2,000 active and 6,000 
associate members. 

There is apparent an active home buying, home own- 
ing movement, with many circumstances indicating that 
the colored people coming in with the new influx are mak- 
ing preparations to stay, their viewpoint being that of the 
boll weevil in that famous negro song, "This'U Be My 
Home.'* In nearly all circles the opinion is voiced that 
Chicago is the most liberal all around town in the coun- 
try, and the constitution of Illinois the most liberal of all 
state constitutions. And so if they can't make Chicago 
a good place for their people to live in the colored people 
wonder where they can go. 

Their houses, jobs, politics, their hope and outlook in 
the "black belt," are topics to be considered in this series 
of articles. 



Ill 

THE NEGRO MIGRATION 

At Michigan avenue and East 31st street comes along 
the street a colored woman and three of her children. 
Two months ago they lived in Alabama, in a two room 
hut with a dirt floor and no running water and none of 
the things known as "conveniences." Barefooted and 
bareheaded, the children walk along with the mother, 
casually glancing at Michigan avenue's moving line of 
motor cars. Suddenly, as in a movie play, a big limousine 
swings to the curb. A colored man steps out, touches his 
hat to the mother and children and gives them the sur- 
prise of their lives. This is what he says : 

"We don't do this up here. It isn't good for us col- 
ored folks to send our children out on the streets like this. 
We're all working together to do the best we can. One 
thing we're particular about is the way we take the little 
ones out on the streets. 

"They ought to look as if they're washed clean all 
over. And they ought to have shoes and stockings and 
hats and clean shirts on. Now you go home and see to 
that. If you haven't got the money to do it, come and 
see me. Here's my card." 

He gives her the card of a banker and real estate man 
at an office where they collect rent monthly from over 
1,000 tenants, and where they hold titles in fee simple to 
the rented properties. 

This little incident gives some idea of the task of assim- 

9 



10 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

ilatlon Chicago took In the last five years in handling the 
more than 70,000 colored people who came here in that 
time, mostly from southern states. 

A big brown stone residence in Wabash avenue, of the 
type that used to be known as "mansions," housed five 
families from Alabama. They threw their dinner leav- 
ings from the back porch. And one night they sat on the 
front steps and ate watermelon and threw the rinds out 
past the curbstone. In effect, they thought they were 
going to live in the packed human metropolis of Chicago 
just as they had lived "down In Alabam'." 

Now they have learned what garbage cans are for. 
From all sides the organized and Intelligent forces of 
the colored people have hammered home the suggestion 
that every mistake of one colored man or woman may 
result in casting a reflection on the whole group. The 
theory Is, "Be clean for your own sake, but remember 
that every good thing you do goes to the credit of all 
of us." 

It must not be assumed, of course, that the types thus 
far mentioned are representative of all who come from 
Alabama or other states of the south. Among the recent 
arrivals, for example, are a banker, the managing editor 
of a weekly newspaper, a manual training instructor In the 
public schools and several men who have made successes 
in business. It is possible now for Chicago white people 
to come into contact with colored men who have had 
years of experience In direct co-operation with Tuskegee 
and Hampton institutes and with the workings in south- 
ern states of the theories of Booker T. Washington, W. 
E. B. Du Bols and others. The application of these 
theories Is being continued in Chicago. 

Willis N. Hugglns, an intensely earnest and active 



THE NEGRO MIGRATION ii 

worker for the Interests of the colored people, Is an In- 
structor in manual training at the Wendell Phillips high 
school. He came from Alabama in 19 17. 

*'I was making a social survey of the northern counties 
of Alabama through the financial aid of Mrs. Emmons 
Blaine of Chicago," he said to me. *'My work was dis- 
continued because our Information collected In that terri- 
tory would be useless. About one-fourth of the colored 
people migrated to the north. 

"There were 12,000 colored people in Decatur, Ala., 
before the war. The migration took away 4,000, judging 
by a house to house canvas I made in various sections of 
that one city. When they took the notion they just went. 
You could see hundreds of houses where mattresses, beds, 
wash bowls and pans were thrown around the back yard 
after the people got throu^ picking out w'hat they 
wanted to take along. 

"All the railroad trains from big territory farther 
south came on through Decatur. Some days five and 
six of these trains came along. The colored people in 
Decatur would go to the railroad station and talk with 
these other people about where they were going. And 
when the moving fever hit them there was no changing 
their minds. 

"Take Huntsville, only a few miles from Decatur, on a 
branch line. There they didn't see these twelve coach 
trains coming through loaded with emigrants. So from 
Huntsville there was not much emigration. 

"In many localities the educated negroes came right 
along with their people. I rode in September, 19 17, with 
a minister from Monroe, La. This was his second trip. 
He had been to Boston and organized a church with 100 
members of his Louisiana congregation. Now he was 



12 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

taking fifty, all in one coach. I hear that later he made 
a third trip and has now moved the whole of his original 
congregation of 300 members up to Boston. He told me 
that the first group he took to Boston were all naturally 
Inclined to go. The second group made up their minds 
more slowly. He said that probably they would not have 
gone at all If It had not been for fears of lynching. A 
series of lynchings in Texas at that time gave him exam- 
ples from which to argue that the north was safer for 
colored people. 

"With many who have come north, the attraction of 
wages and employment Is secondary to the feeling that 
they are going where there are no lynchings. Others say 
that while they know they would never be lynched in the 
south and they are not afraid on that score, they do want 
to go where they are sure there Is more equality and op- 
portunity than In the south. The schools in the north are 
an attraction to others. 

"I make these observations from having personally 
talked with my people in Madison county, Alabama, 
where there were 10,000 negroes, of whom 5,000 came 
north in two years." 



IV 
REAL ESTATE 

Eight bombs or dynamite containers have been ex- 
ploded within the last five months on the doorsteps of 
buildings In the south division of the city, all of these 
buildings being situated In streets adjacent to the resi- 
dence district popularly called the "black belt,'* where the 
population is about 80 per cent colored. The eight ex- 
plosions took place between Feb. 5 and June 13. 

The amount of property destroyed by each explosion 
varied from $50 to $600. Seven of the cases were in- 
vestigated by the police of the station situated at Wabash 
avenue and 48th street, and one was investigated by the 
police of the Cottage Grove Avenue station. 

The police began their work with two theories in mind: 
one that the explosions were the result of race feeling, the 
other that there was a clash between two real estate inter- 
ests. As a result of their work, the police now believe 
that the second theory Is the more likely to be correct. 

Facts In this situation to be reckoned with are that 
practically every organization of colored people, busi- 
ness, political, social and religious, is making propaganda 
in favor of the right of the colored people to buy real 
estate "wherever the white man's money Is good." On 
the other hand, the only organized and noticeable propa- 
ganda among white organizations in this respect Is the 
movement in real estate organizations and neighborhood 
improvement clubs. 

13 



14 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

With reference to the effect of colored residents on real 
estate values, there are two points of view. It is asserted, 
on one hand, that in all cases where the property owner 
has kept up the improvements and refused to sell to spec- 
ulators, his real estate has risen in value. On the other 
hand, it is contended that colored residents bring down 
property values in a neighborhood. Both sides point to 
specific instances in support of their contentions. 

L. M. Smith, of the Kenwood Improvement associa- 
tion, a prominent spokesman for real estate interests, and 
one of those most active in opposition to the movement 
of colored people eastward in his part of the city, gave 
the writer the following expression of his views: 

'*We want to be fair. We want to do what is right. 
But these people will have to be more or less pacified. At 
a conference where their representatives were present, I 
told them we might as well be frank about It, 'you people 
are not admitted to our society,' I said. Personally, I 
have no prejudice against them. I have had experience 
of many years dealing with them, and I'll say this for 
them : I have never had to foreclose a mortgage on one 
of them. They have been clean in every way, and always 
prompt In their payments. But, you know. Improve- 
ments are coming along the lake shore, the Illinois Cen- 
tral, and all that; we can't have these people coming over 
here. 

"Not one cent has been appropriated by our organiza- 
tion for bombing or anything like that. 

"They injure our Investments. They hurt our values. 
I couldn't say how many have moved in, but there's at 
least a hundred blocks that are tainted. We are not mak- 
ing any threats, but we do say that something must be 
done. Of course. If they come In as tenants, we can 



REAL ESTATE 15 

handle the situation fairly easily. But when they get a 
deed, that^s another matter. Be sure to get us straight 
on that. We want to be fair and do what's right." 

Charles S. Duke, a Harvard graduate, former lieuten- 
ant of company G, 8th Illinois infantry and a civil engi- 
neer In the bridge division of the city department of 
public works, expresses the view of his people as fol- 
lows: 

"All attempts at segregation bring only discord and 
resentful opposition. The bombing of the homes of col- 
ored citizens is futile. This will neither intimidate any 
considerable number of them nor stop their moving into 
a given district. The most certain result is bitter racial 
antagonism. 

"White citizens must be educated out of all hysteria 
over actual or prospective arrival of colored neighbors. 
All colored citizens do not make bad neighbors, although 
in some cases they will not make good ones. It is of the 
greatest Importance, however, both to white and colored 
people, that real estate dealers should cease to make a 
business of commercializing racial antagonisms." 

During the series of bomb explosions from February 5 
to June 13 the police made no arrests. On June 13 they 
took into custody James Macherol of 4945 South State 
street and James Turner of 8948^ Parnell avenue. The 
charges were bomb throwing, malicious mischief and car- 
rying explosives without authorization. Their cases have 
been granted two continuances in Judge Gemmlll's court. 
Turner Is a clerk In the real estate office of Dean & 
Meagher, 320 East 51st street. 

Habeas corpus proceedings in behalf of Turner were 
unsuccessful In a hearing before Judge Pam. One con- 
tinuance in the Hyde Park court was granted on the plea 



i6 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

of the defendant's attorney that an alibi witness had gone 
for a two weeks' vacation in Minnesota. 
/ In the series of bombings there is little or nothing to 
indicate a motive to destroy life. In one case a child was 
killed. The police have evidence that in the flat next door 
an Italian girl was to be married and jealous suitors had 
sent threats of violence. The theory is that the dyna- 
miters put the bomb on the wrong doorstep. 



DEMAND FOR NEGRO LABOR 

The demand for colored workers took a slump when 
the armistice was signed. And the slump went on till 
April. Then things began to look up. Now there has 
come a strong movement toward the conditions that held 
good while the war was on. 

At the office of the Chicago Urban league, 3032 South 
Wabash avenue, where a branch of the United States 
Employment service Is maintained, the office force was 
finding work for 1,700 to 1,800 men and women each 
month before the armistice was signed. This figure 
dropped to 500 In April. In the week ended June 14, 
Secretary T. Arnold Hill, colored man and graduate of 
New York university, reports 249 men and thirty-four 
women, a total of 285, placed. He comments: 

"At this rate we should place 1,132 persons a month, 
as compared with 500 or 600 during the three months 
period previous." 

The following is a specimen of the demand for colored 
workers on one day In June: Quartermaster's corps, U. 
S. A., twenty-five men at 45 cents an hour; National 
Malleable Casting Company, twenty men at 40 cents an 
hour; South-eastern Coal Company, forty men at piece 
rates; C, B. & Q. railroad company, ten men at 45 cents 
an hour; Camp Custer, two hundred men at 45 cents an 
hour; railroad workers for the state of Washington, fifty 

17 



l8 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

men at 45 cents an hour; Turbell Ice Cream company, 
four men at $19 a week. 

A bulletin of the ofEce for June 25 states: 

"Unskilled work Is plentiful. Jobs In foundries and 
steel mills, in building and construction work, In light 
factories and packing houses, keep up a steady demand 
for semi-skilled laborers." 

During 191 8 there was a total of 30,000 applications 
for jobs, and 10,600 persons were placed. 

It is believed a record somewhat like this will be main- 
tained again this year; that is, a steady Influx of colored 
population, almost entirely from southern states, will 
keep on coming and will be absorbed by northern Indus- 
try. The amount of this influx will not be as large as in 
the last year or two, but It is expected to be steady. It 
will have the same steady flow, according to men closely in 
touch with It, as the stream of immigration from Europe 
that kept coming to America's shores with such periodic 
certainty before the war. 

Among large employing interests as well as in both 
white and colored labor circles the expectation Is that the 
northern labor supply will be constantly replenished from 
the south. The reasons for this are found In conditions 
described by the immigration and Inspection service of the 
department of labor in a report not as yet made public. 
From Dr. George Edwin Haynes, a colored man who 
took a master's degree at Yale and Ph. D. at Columbia, 
and who is a director of negro economics in the depart- 
ment of labor, comes an advance report on these condi- 
tions, as follows: 

**Among alien residents in our country large numbers 
intend to return to their native land. The principal cause 
is a desire to learn what has befallen their families. 



DEMAND FOR NEGRO LABOR 19 

Many aliens told Investigators they had not heard from 
their families in four years; that they had sent money 
home, but had no means of knowing whether It was re- 
ceived or not. Another cause Is a desire to ascertain and 
settle estates of relatives killed during the war. 

\/ ''Unemployment Is still severe In some sections and 
there Is also a desire on the part of many foreigners to 
return to the land just freed from German or Austrian 
domination in the belief that opportunities will be better 
in the new democracies than In the United States. 

''In many cities investigation shows that fully 50 per 
cent of the aliens Intend to go back to Europe. A large 
number of these expect eventually to return to the United 
States, but many say they will not come back. The cler- 
gyman of one foreign church with 1,600 parishioners 
expects not more than 100 will remain In this country. 
In an Indiana city with a large Roumanian population, 
from 40 to 50 per cent want to return to their homeland, 
Transylvania. Few Poles In the same city expect to re- 
turn, but 150 of the 600 Serbians wish to go, and it was 
said that if unemployment became more serious, this 
number would be Increased. 

/ "An Investigation by a steel plant showed that 66 per 
cent of its alien help were married and 64 per cent of 
them had dependents In the old country. In this plant 61 
per cent of all the aliens declared their Intention to 
return to Europe, and of this number 91 per cent said 
they were going to stay, while only 9 per cent were plan- 
ning to return to America after their European visit. 

*'A prominent Hungarian of Chicago estimated that 
30,000 unnaturalized Austro-Hungarlans live in this city 
and that 50 per cent would go back to Europe. Out of 
a Polish population of 15,000, there were 6,000 expected 



20 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

to return. Among Lithuanians there is a strong feel- 
ing that if Lithuania becomes independent there will be 
a large movement back to that country. These figures 
gathered by the investigation and inspection service of 
the department of labor show conclusively that large 
numbers of aliens will leave never to return." 

With America helping to rebuild Europe and feed its 
people, business expansion is a certainty, Dr. Haynes pre- 
dicts, at the same time asking, "Where is the labor coming 
from to take the place of the labor that is gone never to 
return?" Replying, he says: 'Tt isn't coming from 
China. Somebody has suggested that we bring over 
1,000,000 Chinese coolies. Unless we change the laws 
we passed in the last twenty years, we can't do that. It 
is not coming from Japan because the Pacific coast states 
are going to raise such a howl that we cannot change the 
laws. Furthermore it looks as though we are going to 
have restriction on immigration from the European coun- 
tries. So we may get a few Hawaiians, Filipinos, West 
Indians, but they are colored people. The only great 
source from which we can develop a new power of labor 
that is as yet undeveloped, is from the great mass of 
12,000,000 negro workers. 

"All we are waiting for is the open gate so we may 
enter into the industrial and agricultural opportunities on 
the same terms as other workers. That day has arrived. 
When orders come from France and Belgium and central 
Europe and South America and Africa to the American 
factories, it doesn't matter an iota what color the skin of 
the man whose hand or brain produces that product. The 
manufacturer is getting more and more to realize that 
when the pressure comes, as it came during the war, if he 
can get the labor he doesn't see any color mark on the 



DEMAND FOR NEGRO LABOR 21 

bank check or the draft that he gets in payment for his 
goods. Most of this thing we call a race question Is 
down at rock bottom a labor question. 
^ *'When the colored man can come Into the labor market 
and bargain for the sale of his services on the same terms 
as other workers, a great deal of what Is termed to-day 
the 'race question' Is going to be settled.'* 



VI 

NEW INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES 

Consideration of the question of work for colored 
people shows that it presents three important features; 
(i) the opening of doors to new occupations so that 
skilled men will not have to stay in the common labor 
group all their lives; (2) getting men and women trained 
to perform skilled or unskilled labor and coaching them 
when on a job so that they will hold on; (3) creating a 
sentiment among employers so that no colored man or 
woman will be dismissed merely because of race. 

These three aspects of the colored man's labor prob- 
lem are worthy of careful study. They go to the root of 
the most perplexing immediate phase of what is called 
the race problem. It is economic equality that gets the 
emphasis in the speeches and the writings of the colored 
people themselves. They hate Jim Crow cars and lynch- 
ing and all acts of race discrimination, in part, because 
back of these is the big fact that, even in the north, in 
many skilled occupations, as well as in many unskilled, 
it is useless for any colored man or woman to ask a job. 
And so, from year to year, we find the organizations of 
colored people checking up, listing the new occupations 
they have entered, pointing to new doors opening to men 
on the basis of ability where color does not count one way 
or the other. 

The new doors of opportunity opening in Chicago in 
the last two years, are told here : 

22 



NEW INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES 23 

Molders. Every foundry in Chicago, according to 
the Urban league employment office, which chiefly handles 
the labor situation for colored people, is ready to hire 
colored molders, who have no difficulty in getting jobs. 

Tanneries have opened their doors to both skilled and 
semi-skilled colored workers. 
y Colored shipping clerks have entered freight ware- 
houses. Such a statement might seem to have little signi- 
ficance. As in all these instances, however, it is the 
record of a new precedent. A door once inscribed, "No 
hope," now says, "There is hope." 

V^ Automobile repair shops now employ colored mechan- 
ics. The two largest taxi companies make no discrimi- 
nation on account of color. 

One large mattress factory has opened the doors to col- 
ored workers. 

At the Central Soldiers' and Sailors' bureau at 120 
West Adams street, are available for employment col- 
ored men who served with the 8th infantry regiment in 
the Argonne and the St. Mihiel sectors in front line 
action. There are fifty chauffeurs, twenty first and second 
cooks, thirty miscellaneous kitchen helpers, five valets and 
ten butlers of experience, five shipping clerks, five actors, 
five sales clerks, two stationary engineers, two firemen, 
two night watchmen and five elevator men. 

According to Sergt. H. J. Cannasius, in charge of the 
division dealing with colored labor, a considerable propor- 
tion of the men are justified in refusing to take jobs at 
heavy labor. "These men were gassed or otherwise 
wounded in service in the Argonne or in the St. Mihiel 
actions," he said. "We sent one who had been gassed to 
take a job as porter in a shoe store in State street. He 
was In a basement trying to handle a big box of goods. 



24 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

This was the first approach to heavy work he had tackled 
since he was mustered out. He keeled over, and was 
taken to a hospital, and it was four days before the doc- 
tors would let him go. 

"Men who were gassed in France we find are sensitive 
to dust or fumes. We tried a number in the cement 
works at Buflington, Ind., but they all came back after a 
few days. At coal shoveling and at work in coke and 
coal at gas houses or around vats and retorts where there 
are fumes these men can't stand up to the work. They 
come back almost with tears, saying they tried to hold 
out, but couldn't. 

"The Northwestern railroad dining car service has 
employed a number of ex-soldiers as waiters. Some res- 
taurants and hotels have taken porters and pantrymen at 
$11 a week and board. We would have no trouble fill- 
ing calls for more workers in this field. A call came to- 
day for a colored bookkeeper to go to a normal school at 
EHzabeth, N. C. 

"Some of the returned men of the 8th infantry went 
to see about getting places as sleeping car porters. They 
found they would have to stand an initial fee of $35 for 
uniforms, and as they had no money they gave it up. 

"Three of our applicants can fill positions as interpre- 
ters or secretaries who are required to know the chief 
South American and European languages. It is notice- 
able that some whose homes are in the south say they are 
going to stay in Chicago, and under no consideration will 
they go back to Mississippi, Georgia and other states that 
draw the color line hard and fast. We have five or six 
applicants a day, new ones, coming in and saying they 
have chosen the north to live in. They pound on my 



NEW INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES 25 

table and say, "I'll be stiff as this table before I go back 
south." 

Sergt. Cannasius told the story of Edward Burke, of 
3632 VIncennes avenue. Burke volunteered for naval 
service In California before the draft and became chief 
commissary steward on the ship Mauben. He was dis- 
charged at Norfolk and took the best position he could 
get, that of first cook on a dining car. English, French, 
German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese — practically all lan- 
guages spoken In South America or in central or western 
Europe — are fluently spoken by Burke. His aspirations 
are toward a position as interpreter or secretary, but thus 
far destiny bids him fry eggs and stew beef with his many 
languages. 

The Chicago Whip, a new weekly newspaper, voices 
appreciation of two utility corporations that have opened 
the doors of employment to colored men. 

"The Peoples Gas company breaks precedent by em- 
ploying four meter Inspectors at salaries of $100 per 
month and four special meter readers who are boys, 16 
years old, at salaries of $55 per month," says the paper. 
"The experiment of the gas company proved so success- 
ful that the Commonwealth Edison company Immediately 
followed suit by placing six colored men in the meter in- 
stallation department." 



VII 

AFTER EACH LYNCHING 

Chicago is a receiving station that connects directly 
with every town or city where the people conduct a lynch- 

/ "Every time a lynching takes place in a community 

/ down south you can depend on it that colored people from 

I that community will arrive in Chicago inside of two 

I weeks," says Secretary Arnold Hill of the Chicago Urban 

^4ea:g"ue, 3032 South Wabash avenue. *'We have seen it 

happen so often that now whenever we read newspaper 

dispatches of a public hanging or burning in Texas or a 

Mississippi town, we get ready to extend greetings to 

people from the immediate vicinity of the scene of the 

lynching. If it is Arkansas or Georgia, where a series 

of lynchings is going on this week, then you may reckon 

with certainty that there will be large representations 

from those states among the colored folks getting off the 

trains at the Illinois Central station two or three weeks 

from to-day.'* 

f. Better jobs, the right to vote and have the vote counted 
at elections, no Jim Crow cars, less race discrimination 
and a more tolerant attitude on the part of the whites, 
equal rights with white people in education — these are 
among the attractions that keep up the steady movement 
of colored people from southern districts to the north. 

"Opportunity, not alms," is the slogan of the educated, 
while the same thought comes over and over again from 

26 



AFTER EACH LYNCHING 27 

the Illiterate In their letters, saying, *'A11 we want Is a 
chanst," or, as one spells It, "Let me have a chanch, 
please/' 

^ Hundreds of letters written to The Chicago Defender, 
the newspaper, and to the Urban league reflect the causes 
of the migration. Charles Johnston, an Investigator for 
the Carnegie foundation, a lieutenant from overseas with 
the 803d Infantry, believes the economic motive Is fore- 
most. He says: 

"There are several ways of arriving at a conclusion 
regarding the economic forces behind the movement of 
the colored race northward. The factors might be deter- 
mined by the amount of unemployment or the extent of 
poverty. These facts are Important, but may or may not 
account for Individual action. 

"Except In a few localities of the south there was no 
actual misery or starvation. Nor Is It evident that those 
who left would have perished from want had they re- 
mained. Large numbers of negroes have frequently 
moved around from state to state and even within the 
states of the south In search of more remunerative em- 
ployment. The migrations to Arkansas and Oklahoma 
were expressions of the economic force. 

"A striking feature of the northern migration was its 
individualism. Motives prompting the thousands of 
negroes w^ere not always the same, not even In the case 
of close neighbors. The economic motive was foremost, 
a desire simply to Improve their living standards when 
opportunity beckoned. A movement to the west or even 
about the south could have proceeded from the same 
cause. 

"Some of the letters reveal a praiseworthy solicitude 
for their families on the part of the writers. Other let- 



28 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

ters are an index to poverty and helplessness of home 
communities. 

"In this type of migration the old order is strangely 
reversed. Instead of leaving an overdeveloped and over- 
crowded country for undeveloped new territory, they 
have left the south, backward as it is in development 
of its resources, for the highly industrialized north. Out 
of letters from the south we listed seventy-nine different 
occupations among i,ooo persons asking for information 
and aid. Property holders, impecunious adventurers, 
tradesmen, entire labor unions, business and professional 
men, families, boys and girls, all registered their pro- 
tests, mildly but determinately, against their homes and 
sought to move.'* 

From Pensacola, Fla., in May, 19 17, came a letter say- 
ing, ''Would you please let me know what is the price of 
boarding and rooming in Chicago and where is the best 
place to get a job before the draft will work? I would 
rather join the army 1,000 times up there than to join it 
once down here." 

"What I want to say is I am coming north," wrote 
another, "and thought I would write you and list a few 
of the things I can do and see if you can find a place for 
my anywhere north of the Mason and Dixon line, and I 
will present myself in person at your office as soon as I 
hear from you. I am now employed in the R. R. shops at 
Memphis. I am an engine watchman, hostler, rod cup 
man, pipe fitter, oil house man, shipping clerk, telephone 
lineman, freight caller, an expert soaking vat man who 
can make dope for packing hot boxes on engines. I am 
capable of giving satisfaction in either of the above- 
named positions." 

"I wish very much to come north," wrote a New Or- 



AFTER EACH LYNCHING 29 

leans man. ^'Anywhere In Illinois will do If I am away 
from the lynchmen's noose and the torchmen's fire. We 
are firemen, machinist helpers, practical painters and gen- 
eral laborers. And most of all, ministers of the gospel 
who are not afraid of labor, for It put us where we are." 

"I want to ask you for information as to what steps I 
should take to secure a good position as a first class auto- 
mobeal blacksmith or any kind pertaining to such," Is an 
inquiry from a large Georgia city. "I have been operat- 
ing a first class white shop here for quite a number of 
years, and If I must say, the only colored man in the city 
that does. Any charges, why notify me, but do not pub- 
lish my name." 

"Please don't publish this In any paper," and "I 
would not like for my name to be published In the 
paper," are requests that accompanied two letters from 
communities where lynchings had occurred. 

A girl wrote from Natchez : 

"I am writing you to oblige me to put my application 
In the papers for me, please. I am a body servant or a 
nice house maid. My hair Is black and my eyes are black 
and I have smooth skin, clear and brown. Good teeth 
and strong and good health. My weight is 136 lbs." 

Here is a sample of the kind of letter that Is handed 
around and talked about down south. It was written by 
a colored workman in East Chicago, June, 19 17, to his 
former pastor at Union Springs, Ala. : 

"It Is true the colored men are making good. Pay Is 
never less than $3 per day for ten hours — this not 
promise. I do not see how they pay such wages the way 
they work laborers. They do not hurry or drive you. 
Remember this ($3) Is the very lowest wage. Piece work 
men can make from $6 to $8 a day. They receive their 



30 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

pay every two weeks. I am impressed. My family also. 
They are doing nicely. I have no right to complain 
whatever." 

*'I often think so much of the conversation we used to 
have concerning this part of the world. I wish many 
times you could see our people up here, as they are en- 
tirely In a different light. I witnessed Decoration day on 
May 30, the line of march was four miles, eight brass 
bands. All business houses were closed. I tell you the 
people here are patriotic. The chief of police dropped 
dead Friday. Buried him to-day, the procession about 
three miles long. People are coming here every day and 
find employment. Nothing here but money, and It Is not 
hard to get. Oh, I have children In school every day 
with the white children." 

Enterprise must be the first name of another who 
wrote back to Georgia : 

"You can hardly get a place to live in here. I am wide 
'awake on my financial plans. I have rented me a place 
for boarders. I have fifteen sleepers, I began one week 
ago. I am going into some kind of business here soon. 

"The colored people are making good. They are the 
best workers. I have made a great many white friends. 
The church is crowded with Baptists from Alabama and 
Georgia. Ten and twelve join every Sunday. He Is 
planning to build a fine brick church. He takes up 50 
and 60 dollars each Sunday." 

It must be noted that all the foregoing letters were 
written with no intent of publication and with no view at 
all of explaining race migration or factors in housing, 
employment and education. 



VIII 
TRADES FOR COLORED WOMEN 

A colored woman entered the office of a north side 
establishment where artificial flowers are manufactured. 

*'I have a daughter 17 years old," she said to the 
proprietor. 

"All places filled now," he answered. 

"I don't ask a job for her," came the mother's reply. 
*'I want her to learn how to do the work like the white 
girls do. She'll work for nothing. We don't ask wages, 
just so she can learn." 

So It was arranged for the girl to go to work. Soon 
she was skilled and drawing wages with the highest In the 
shop. Other colored girls came In. And now the entire 
group of fifteen girls that worked in this north side shop 
have been transferred to a new factory on the south side, 
near their homes. At the same time a number of colored 
girls have gone Into home work In making artificial 
flowers. 

Such are the casual, hit-or-miss Incidents by which the 
way was opened for colored working people to enter one 
Industry on the same terms as the white wage earners. 

Doll hats, lamp shades, millinery — these are three 
branches of manufacture where colored labor has entered 
factories and has also begun home work. Colored work- 
ers, with their bundles of finished goods on which the en- 
tire family has worked, going to the contractor to turn in 
the day's output are now a familiar sight in some neigh- 

31 



32 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

borhoods. In one residence a colored woman employs 
seven girls, who come to the house every day and make 
lamp shades, which are later delivered to a contractor. 
The first week in July thirty girls were placed in one mil- 
linery shop. 

A notable recent development, partly incidental to con- 
ditions of war industry, is the entrance of colored women 
into garment factories, particularly where women's and 
children's garments are made. In Chicago in the last year 
they have been assigned to the operation of power ma- 
chines making children's clothes, women's apparel, over- 
alls and rompers. 

Out of 170 firms in Chicago that employed colored 
women for the first time during the war, 42, or 24 per 
cent, were hotels or restaurants, which hired them as kit- 
chen help or bus girls. Twenty-one, or 12 per cent, were 
hotels or apartment houses which hired them as chamber- 
maids. Nineteen laundries, 12 garment-factories, seven 
stores, and eight firms, hiring laborers and janltresses, 
make up the rest of the 170. The packing industry, of 
course, leads all others In employment of both colored 
men and women as workers. Occupations that engaged 
still others during the war were picture framers, capsule 
makers, candy wrappers, tobacco strippers, noodle mak- 
ers, nut shellers, furniture sandpaperers, corset repairers, 
paper box makers. Ice cream cone strippers, poultry dress- 
ers and bucket makers. 

In a building near the public library Is a colored wo- 
man who conducts a hair-dressing parlor. She employs 
three white girls. All the patrons are white. The pro- 
prietress herself could easily pass for a Brazilian banana 
planter's widow, of Spanish Caucasian blood. But as 
she frankly admits that she is one-eighth African and 



TRADES FOR COLORED WOMEN 33 

seven-eighths Caucasian, she has been refused admission 
to other buildings when she wished for various reasons to 
change the location of her establishment. 

Here and there, slowly and by degrees, the line of 
color discrimination breaks. A large chain of dairy 
lunchrooms in Chicago employs colored bus girls, cooks 
and dishwashers and depends almost entirely on colored 
help to do the rougher work. 

More notable yet Is the fact that a downtown business 
college Informs employment bureaus that it Is able to 
place any and all colored graduates of the college in posi- 
tions as stenographers and typists. In a few loop stores 
colored salesgirls are employed. In one shoe store be- 
ginning this policy, a white girl filed complaint. The 
manager inv^estlgated and found there was no objection 
except from this one white girl, who was thereupon dis- 
missed. 

A mattress factory opened wage earning opportunities 
to colored women In the last year. Two taxicab com- 
panies now hire women as cleaners. The foregoing list 
of occupations just about completes the recital of progress 
In this regard In Chicago In the last year. 

Colored women were occupied during the war In var- 
ious cities In making soldiers' uniforms, horses' gas 
masks, belts, puttees, leggings, razor blade cases, gloves, 
veils, embroideries, raincoats, books, cigars, cigarettes, 
dyed furs, millinery, candy, artificial feathers, buttons, 
toys, marabou and women's garments. 

The comment of a trained Industrial observer on the 
colored woman as a machine operator Is as follows: 

"Few as yet are skilled as machine or hand operators. 
Because of their newness to Industrial work, the majority 
have been put on processes requiring no training and 



34 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

small manual ability. They are employed at repetitive 
hand operations, and occasionally run a foot press or a 
power sewing machine. In one millinery shop, however, 
the superintendent said that every colored worker in his 
shop preferred machine operation to hand work. 

"Replacement for colored women, however, does not 
mean advancement in the same sense as for white women. 
Because the white woman has been in industry for a long 
time, and is more familiar with industrial practices, she 
is less willing to accept bad working conditions. The 
^olored woman, oTi the other hand, is handicapped by; 
industrial ignorance and drifts into conditions of work 
rejected by white workers. Colored women are found 
on processes white women refuse to perform. They re- 
place boys and men at cleaning window shades, dyeing 
furs, and in one factory they were found bending con- 
stantly and lifting clumsy i6o pound bales of material. 

^'Inquiries as to the general attitude of white workers 
toward the introduction of colored women brought con- 
flicting reports. About half the employers claimed that 
their white workers had no objection to the colored wo- 
men; that they were either cordial or entirely indifferent 
toward them. Of the other half, some said their white 
workers objected when the colored workers were first 
hired, but felt no prejudice now. Other white workers 
preferred to have the two groups segregated. Still others 
were willing to let the colored workers do unskilled work, 
but refused to allow them on the skilled processes. 

"At the time of the greatest labor shortage in the his- 
tory of this country, colored women were the last to be 
employed. They did the most menial and by far the most 
underpaid work. They were the marginal workers all 
through the war, and yet during those perilous times, the 



TRADES FOR COLORED WOMEN 35 

colored woman made just as genuine a contribution to the 
cause of democracy as her white sister in the munitions 
factory or her brother in the trench. She released the 
white women for more skilled work and she replaced 
colored men who went into service." 

The report of a study jointly directed by representa- 
tives of the Consumers' league, Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. 
A., Russell Sage foundation and other organizations rec- 
ommends that greater emphasis be placed on the training 
of the colored girl by more general education and more 
trade training through apprenticeship and trade schools, 
and also that every effort be made to stimulate trade 
organizations among colored women by education of col- 
ored women working toward organization, education of 
colored workers for industrial leadership and keener 
understanding of colored women in industry among or- 
ganized and unorganized white workers. And, lastly, an 
appreciation and acceptance of the colored woman In 
industry by the American employer and the public at 
large is urged. 

A creed of cleanliness was issued in thousands of 
copies by the Chicago Urban league during the big Influx 
of colored people from the south. It recognized that the 
woman, always the woman is finally responsible for the 
looks and upkeep of a household, and made Its appeal In 
the following language: 

''For me ! I am an American citizen. I am proud of 
our boys 'over there,' who have contributed soldier ser- 
vice. I desire to render citizen service. I realize that 
our soldiers have learned new habits of self-respect and 
cleanliness. I desire to help bring about a new order of 
living in this community. I will attend to the neatness of 
my personal appearance on the street or when sitting In 



36 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

the front doorway. I will refrain from wearing dust- 
caps, bungalow aprons, house clothing and bedroom 
shoes when out of doors. I will arrange my toilet within 
doors and not on the front porch. I will Insist upon the 
use of rear entrances for coal dealers and hucksters. I 
will refrain from loud talking and objectionable deport- 
ment on street cars and In public places. I will do my 
best to prevent defacement of property, either by children 
or adults." 

Two photographs went with this creed. One showed 
an unclean, messy front porch, the other a clean, well 
kept front porch. Such is the propaganda of order and 
decency carried on earnestly and ceaselessly/ by clubs, 
churches and leagues of colored people, struggling to 
bring along the backward ones of a people whose heri- 
tage is 200 years of slavery and fifty years of Industrial 
boycott. 

As an aside from the factual and the humdrum of the 
foregoing, here is a letter, vivid with roads and bypaths 
of spiritual life, written by a colored woman to her sister 
in Mississippi. It is a frank confession of one sister soul 
to another of what life has brought, and as a document 
Is worth more than stacks of statistics. 

"My Dear Sister: — I was agreeably surprised to hear 
from you and to hear from home. I am well and thank- 
ful to say I am doing well. The weather and everything 
else was a surprise to me when I came. I got here in 
time to attend one of tht greatest revivals in the history 
of my life. Over 500 people joined the church. We had 
a Holy Ghost shower. You know I like to have run 
wild. It was snowing some nights and if you didn't hurry 
you could not get standing room. 

*Tlease remember me kindly to any who ask of me. 



TRADES FOR COLORED WOMEN 37 

The people are rushing here by the thousands, and I 
know if you come and rent a big house you can get all the 
roomers you want. You write me exactly when you are 
coming. I am not keeping house. I am living with my 
brother and his wife. My son is in California, but will 
be home soon. He spends his winter in California. I 
can get a nice place for you to stop until you can look 
around and see what you want. 

'T am quite busy. I work for a packing company In 
the sausage department. My daughter and I work in 
the same department. We get $1.50 a day and we pack 
so many sausages we don't have much time to play, but 
It Is a matter of a dollar with me and I feel that God 
made the path and I am. walking therein. 

"Tell your husband work is plentiful here and he won't 
have to loaf If he wants to work. I know unless old man 

A changed it was awful with his soul. Well, I guess 

I have said about enough. I will be delighted to look into 
your face once more in life. Pray for me, for I am 
heaven bound. I have made too many rounds to slip 
now. I know you will pray for me, for prayer Is the life 
of any sensible man or woman. Good-by." 



IX 

NEGROES AND RISING RENTS 

One of the best known club women in Chicago sold an 
apartment house on Wabash avenue last month. It cost 
her $26,000. She sold it for $14,000. Her agent advised 
her to make the sale because, as he said, the colored 
people were coming into the neighborhood and the prop- 
erty surely was going to take a slump. 

That is Chapter I of the little story. Chapter II 
opens with the rent of each apartment taking a jump 
from $2^ to $50 in this identical apartment house that 
had apparently taken such a drop in value in the open 
market. The fact is that it wasn't an open market. It 
was a panicky market. Sold openly, so that all prospec- 
tive buyers might have had opportunity to bid, the place 
would have brought a higher price than was originally 
paid for it. 

In two other Instances in this same neighborhood prop- 
erties at one time worth $15,000 dropped to $8,000 and 
$6,000, respectively, in a market so managed that there 
was no competitive bidding. The sellers were filled with 
panic. Then the rents took a high jump after the sales 
were made. 

There seem to be certain preposterous axioms of real 
estate exchange governing this district and no others in 
Chicago. These axioms might be stated thus : ( i ) Sell 
at a loss and the rent goes higher, and (2) the larger 

38 



NEGROES AND RISING RENTS 39 

the number of colored persons ready to pay higher 
rentals, the lower the realty values slump. 

To quote a paragraph from the housing survey of the 
school of civics and philanthropy: 

*Tt is a matter of common knowledge that house after 
house, flat after flat, whether under white or black agents, 
comes to the negro at an increased rental. The only 
available argument, it would seem, which will ever dispel 
the public impressions is for instances to become just as 
numerous of charge downward as they now are of charge 
upward. A negro woman, recent purchaser of a modern 
six flat building on the south side, informed the investi- 
gator that she had been importuned by numerous white 
agents and by two negro dealers, one of whom she named, 
to allow them to rent her flat for her at a substantial 
increase above the rent she is now receiving, acting as 
her own agent." 

The report says further: "Counter-charges are made 
against the negro tenant by dealers of both races." It con- 
siders these charges in extensive detail, and then de- 
clares : 

*'It is established that, despite the low rents, which are 
' immaterial in the light of circumstances, the general hous- 
ing condition of negroes in the area lying between State 
street and the railroad tracks, stretching for several 
blocks north and south of 27th street, is reprehensible, a 
menace to health and constitutes kindling wood sufiicient 
to keep Chicago in constant danger of disastrous con- 
flagration. 

"Whatever may be the contributing causes, demand 
and supply, overbidding for coveted places on the part 
of tenants, inconspicuousness of the negro as an economic 
factor, guaranteed rentals or what not, the negro in 



40 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

Chicago, paid a lower wage than the white workman and 
more limited In opportunity, does pay a relatively higher 
rent. The negro real estate man is much fairer, generally 
speaking, than is supposed, and could means be found 
whereby he and the tenant could get together and come 
to an understanding on many things, each about the other, 
regarding which they are now deluded, the first step 
would have been taken to the improvement of the lot of 
the negro renter." 

Twenty years ago fewer than fifty families of the col- 
ored race were home owners In Chicago. To-day they 
number thousands, their purchases ranging from $200 to 
$20,000, from tar paper shacks In the steel district to 
brownstone and graystone establishments with wealthy or 
well to do white neighbors. In most cases, where a col- 
ored man has Investments of more than ordinary size, It 
Is In large part In real estate. Realty Investment and 
management seem to be an Important field of operation 
among those colored people who acquire substance. 

In the matter of home buying there Is something radi- 
cally abnormal about the situation of the colored people 
in Chicago. The last census computed 22.5 per cent of 
the homes occupied by colored citizens In the United 
States as owned by the occupants. In Illinois 23 per cent 
of the colored householders owned their premises. But 
In Chicago the survey of the School of Civics and Phil- 
anthropy in 19 1 7 reported that In the south division only 
4 per cent of the apartments and houses occupied by col- 
ored persons were owned by the occupants and on the 
west side only 8 per cent. In South Chicago and in the 
stockyards district, where the highest percentage of own- 
ership was found, 18 per cent of the colored families 
owned their homes. So It Is evident that the percentage 



NEGROES AND RISING RENTS 41 

of home owners in the district around 35th and State 
streets is desperately low as compared with other Chicago 
districts and as compared with the country at large. 

It is easy to understand how the doubling of population 
during the late war made a live real estate situation. Not 
only was it difficult for the newcomers to buy homes, if 
they so desired, but it was hard at times for them even to 
get a place to sleep. The Urban league canvassed real 
estate dealers one day and found 664 colored applicants 
for houses on that day and only fifty suppHed. The de- 
mands for quarters, the higher rentals paid by colored 
people and other factors were responsible for thirty-six 
new localities being opened up within three months, these 
localities having formerly been exclusively white. This 
increase in rents was from 5 to 30 per cent, and in a few 
cases 50 per cent. 

"To-day we are beginning to realize that to become a 
good citizen, it is necessary to own a home, and that those 
who are renting cannot be considered other than float- 
ers," is the comment of Jesse Binga, banker, the oldest 
established colored real estate dealer in Chicago. 

When Binga bought one corner on South State street 
it was valued at $300 a front foot. It is now worth $500 
a front foot. Six saloons did a fast business in that neigh- 
borhood when he entered there, and it was said of it, 
*'You could get anything you wanted, from a footrace to 
a murder." Now it is a quiet, ordinary residence corner, 
and in behavior and cleanliness it ranks as one of the best 
in Chicago. 

Though there are 249 building and loan associations 
in Chicago, there was none for the colored race until the 
Pyramid Building and Loan association, financed and 



42 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

officered by colored men, came Into existence this year. 
There have been 690 shares sold to 105 persons. 

Housing surveys of colored residence districts, varying 
in scope and purposes, are being conducted by the Cook 
county real estate board and the city public welfare de- 
partment. One of the best publications on this subject is 
a pamphlet by Lieut. Charles S. Duke, a colored man, a 
Harvard graduate, and an engineer In the bridge division 
of the public works department at the city hall. It was 
published last April and It summarizes proposals for Im- 
mediate action under two heads. 

First are "things that Chicago owes her colored citi- 
zens," which are stated as follows: 

1. The privilege of borrowing money easily upon 
real estate occupied by colored citizens living on the south 
side, and in the same amounts as can be borrowed upon 
property located in other parts of the city. 

2. Better attention in the matter of repairs and up- 
keep of premises occupied by colored tenants. 

3. Making an end of the neglect of neighborhoods 
occupied principally by colored people. 

4. Abandonment of all attempts at racial segrega- 
tion. 

5. Prohibition, as far as possible, of the commer- 
cializing of race prejudice in real estate matters. 

6. Recovery from hysteria Incident to the advent of 
the first colored neighbors. 

7. Fewer indignation meetings and more constructive 
planning. 

8. Better school houses and more modern equipment 
in schools in districts where colored people live in large 
numbers. 



NEGROES AND RISING RENTS -43 

9. More playgrounds and recreational centers on the 
south side. 

10. A beautiful branch library in the center of the 
colored district. 

As a corollary are presented these "things that colored 
citizens owe Chicago": 

1. Better care of premises occupied by them, either 
as tenants or as landlords. 

2. Formation of improvement clubs for the beauti- 
fication of the neighborhoods in which they may live. 

3. Practice of thrift and economy in the spending of 
income. 

4. Keeping the expenditures within the income. 

5. The buying of beautiful, sanitary homes. 

6. Spending less money for amusements and e^ipen- 
sive clothing. 

7. Checkmating of the real estate broker who makes 
it his business to capitalize race prejudice in his dealings. 

8. Reduction of the lodger evil. 

9. Ending of the practice of taking on real estate 
obligations beyond the purchaser's means. 

10. A continual demand for all the civic benefits that 
a beautiful and progressive city like Chicago can confer 
upon its citizens. 



UNIONS AND THE COLOR LINE 

At the Saddle and Sirloin club there sat In conference 
one day a few months ago representatives from two 
groups. On one side of the table were men speaking for 
the most active organizations of colored people In Chi- 
cago In matters of employment and general welfare. 
On the other side of the table were men speaking for the 
packers who employ at the stockyards upwards of 15,000 
colored men and women, Interests that are to-day and 
are expected to be In the future the largest employers of 
colored labor. 

Four points to constitute a guiding policy In employ- 
ment were offered by the colored representatives, with 
a statement that the principles embodied the general 
sense of the leaders of social, Industrial, welfare and 
religious groups of the colored race In Chicago. After 
discussion the representatives of the packers agreed to 
accept the four points, and they are regarded by the col- 
ored people as In force and effective until further notice. 

The four points as phrased In the conference at the 
Saddle and Sirloin club, are; 

1. That whenever we are attempting to Introduce' 
negro workers Into trades In which white workers are 
unionized, we must urge the negroes to join the unions. 

2. That when we are Introducing negro labor Into 
industries In which the white workers are not unionized, 

44 



UNIONS AND THE COLOR LINE 45 

we advise negroes, In case the effort Is made to unionize 
the Industry, to join with their white comrades. 

3. That we strongly urge the organizers of all the 
unions In Industries which may be opened to colored 
labor, not only to permit, but actively to assist In Incorpor- 
ating negroes Into the unions. 

4. In cases where negroes are prevented from joining 
the unions, the right Is reserved of complete liberty of 
action as to the advice that will be given to negro work- 
ing men. 

With these points In force, the men concerned felt that 
they had taken all steps humanly possible to avert any 
such disaster as came to East St. Louis, where labor con- 
ditions were a factor. 

Estimates as to the number of colored workers who 
have joined the trade unions of the Stockyards Labor 
council vary from 6,000 to 10,000. The organizers say 
they are too busy to make even an approximate count. 
They say further that the organizations are mixed col- 
ored and white, and a count of membership Is not as easy 
as It would be If all colored members were segregated In 
one local. Such a segregation Is not being thought of. 

"Men who work together In mixed gangs of white and 
colored workers believe their trade union ought to be 
organized just like the work gang," said A. K. Foote, a 
colored man whose craft Is that of hog killer and who is 
secretary of local 651 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters 
and Butcher Workmen of North America. 

*'If you ask me what I think about race prejudice, and 
whether it's getting better," he said, "I'll tell you the one 
place In this town where I feel safest Is over at the yards, 
with my union button on. The union is for protection, 
that's our cry. We put that on our organization wagons 



46 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

and trucks traveling the stockyards district, in signs tell- 
ing the white and colored men that their interests are 
identical. 

"We had a union ball a while ago in the Coliseum 
annex, and 2,000 people were there. The whites danced 
with their partners and the colored folks with theirs. 
The hog butchers' local gave a picnic recently and they 
came around to our people with tickets to sell, and the 
attendance at the picnic was cosmopolitan. Whenever 
you hear any of that race riot stuff, you can be sure it is 
not going to start around here. Here they are learning 
that it pays for white and colored men to call each other 
brother." 

Local 651 has a commodious, well-kept office at 43d 
and State streets. It is known as the "miscellaneous" local, 
taking in as members the common laborers and all work- 
ers not qualifying for membership in a skilled craft 
union. One advantage for colored workers, according 
to organizers, is that the seniority rights of such workers 
are now accorded. If the head of a work gang quits for 
any reason and a colored man is the oldest in point of 
service in the gang or department, he is automatically 
advanced. When an organization meeting was held re- 
cently on a Sunday afternoon in a public school yard at 
33d street and Wentworth avenue, the police directed 
that the parade of the colored workmen from their hall 
at 43d and State streets must not march down State street 
through the district most heavily populated with negroes. 
The union officials are still mystified by the police explan- 
ation that it was safer and better for the colored proces- 
sion to take a line of march where there were the smallest 
number of negro residents on the streets. 

Margaret Bondfield, fraternal delegate from the 



UNIONS AND THE COLOR LINE 47 

British trades union congress, spoke to the audience, 
which numbered about 3,000. Probably 2,000 stood in 
the hot sun three hours while the American Giants (col- 
ored) played in the next lot, and the White Sox game 
was on only two blocks away. 

John Riley and C. Ford, organizers carrying authori- 
zations from the American Federation of Labor, were 
speakers. Ford has personality, rides rough-shod over 
English grammar, but wins his crowd with homely points 
such as these : 

*'If I had any prejudice against a white man in this 
crowd any more than I've got against a colored man, then\ 
I'd jump down here off this platform and break my 
infernal neck right now." 

"You boys know about rassling. You know if you 
throw a rassler down you know you got to stay down with 
him if you're going to keep him down : If you don't stay 
down with him, he'll get up and you got to throw him 
again." 

*'You notice there ain't no Jim Crow cars here to-day. 
That's what organization does. The truth is there ain't 
no negro problem any more than there's a Irish problem 
or a Russian or a Polish or a Jewish or any other prob- 
lem. There is only the human problem, that's all. All 
we demand is the open door. You give us that, and we 
won't ask nothin' more of you." 

It was a curious equation of human races that stood 
listening to this talk. Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks, Ital- 
ians and colored men mingled in all sections of the crowd, 
and every speaker touching the topic of prejudice got the 
same kind of a response from all parts of the crowd. So 
they stood in the July afternoon sun, listening as best they 
could to what they could hear from their orators, while 



48 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

the noisy cheers and laughter of two ball games came on 
the air in great gusts. They were 2,000 men for whom 
the race problem is solved. Their theory is that when 
economic equality of the races is admitted, then the social, 
housing, real estate, transportation or educational phases 
are not difficult. 

* 'We all know there are unions in the American Feder- 
ation of Labor that have their feet in the 20th century and 
their heads in the i6th century," said Secretary Johnstone 
of the Stockyards Labor council, as applause swept the 
sunburned 2,000. He was referring to the unions that 
draw the color line. 

The Rev. L. K. Williams of Olivet Baptist church, 
which has a membership of 8,500, and the Rev. John F. 
Thomas of the Ebenezer Baptist church at 35th and 
Dearborn streets, besides other clergymen, have voiced 
approval of the campaign for organization of colored 
labor in affiliation with the trade union movement. There 
was dissent to organization spoken by a few ministers at 
one time, but this is said now to have changed to 
approval. 

A unique memorial was circulated among all colored 
clergymen in Chicago by five labor unions in which the 
colored people have a large representation. In order 
that each copy should bear proof of its authenticity, it 
was embossed with the seal of each of the five unions and 
signed by the officers. The memorial read: 

**Whereas, God is the creator of all mankind and has 
endowed us with certain inalienable rights that should be 
respected one by the other, so that peace and harmony 
will reign and hell on earth be subdued; and, 

"Whereas, the unscrupulous white plutocrats, aided by 
corrupt politicians, have usurped even the rights of the 



UNIOxNS AND THE COLOR LINE 49 

workers guaranteed by the constitution and supplanted 
oppression and discord by propagating race hatred, dis- 
crimination and class distinction, and 

"Whereas, the credulous common people (white and 
black) have been the maltreated tools of these financial 
master mechanics, and their fallacious teachings have 
kept us divided and made their throne more secure, and 

"Whereas, the power of the united front and concerted 
action of all tollers is the only medium through which in- 
dustrial and political democracy can be obtained, wage 
slavery and unjust legislation destroyed, and 

"Whereas, the executive board of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor on April 22, 19 18, in Washington, D. 
C, was met by a committee of recognized race leaders, 
and adopted plans thoroughly to organize the colored 
workers in industry, putting them on the some economic 
level with other races; therefore, be it 

"Resolved, that we appeal to the conscientious race 
leaders. Intellectuals and other God fearing men of influ- 
ence, who believe in human rights, justice and fair play 
and are desirous of conveying light and plenty where 
darkness and want predominate, to assist the 60,000 col- 
ored members of the American Federation of Labor in 
fostering and encouraging members of our race to affiliate 
with the bona fide labor movement, to the end that we 
will have a larger representation in this Industrial army, 
which will exemplify to the white progressives, as well as 
autocrats, that we are 'straws in the new broom of recon- 
struction, that will sweep clean American Institutions, 
ridding them of discrimination and corruption.' " 

With the official union seals were the signatures of 
George A. Swan, president; Hugh Swift, vice president, 
and R. E. Copeland, secretary of the Musicians' Protec- 



50 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

tlve union; Garrett Rice, president, A. L. Johnson, vice 
president, and A. Welcher, secretary of the Railway 
Coach Cleaners' union; N. S. WImms, president, and P. 
D. Campbell, vice president, of the Sleeping Car Porters 
of America ; Annie M. Jones, president, Isabel Case, vice 
president, and Mabel Kinglln, secretary of local 213 of 
the Butcher Workmen's union; Henry Pappers, presi- 
dent, J. W. Smith, vice president, and A. K. Foote, sec- 
retary of local 651 of the Butcher Workmen's union. 

There is odd humor in the fact that Dr. George C. 
Hall, a colored surgeon and real estate proprietor to 
the extent of $100,000, has been for years an honorary 
member of the Meat Cutters' and Butcher Workmen's 
union. Dr. Hall always has contended that organization 
is one route away from race discrimination. 



XI 
ABOUT LYNCHINGS 

"Eleven persons joined our church the other Sunday 
and they were all from Vicksburg, Miss., where there had 
been a lynching a few weeks before," said Dr. L. K. Wil- 
liams, colored pastor of the largest protestant church in 
North America, in an address to the Baptist Ministers' 
council of Chicago. 

Tuskeegee institute records of lynchlngs the first six 
months of this year show the following numbers In the 
states named: Alabama, 3; Arkansas, 4; Florida, 2; 
Georgia, 3; Louisiana, 4; Mississippi, 7; Missouri, i; 
North Carolina, 2; South Carolina, i; Texas, i. The 
total, 28, is seven less than In the corresponding period of 
19 1 8 and fourteen more than in the corresponding period 
of 1917. 

Not only Is Chicago a receiving station and port of 
refuge for colored people who are anxious to be free from 
the jurisdiction of lynch law, but there has been built here 
a publicity or propaganda machine that directs Its appeals 
or carries on an agitation that every week reaches hun- 
dreds of thousands of people of the colored race in the 
southern states. The State street blocks south of 31st 
street are a "newspaper row," with the Defender, the 
Broad Ax, the Plaindealer, the Searchlight, the Guide, 
the Advocate, the Whip, as weekly publications, and 
there are also Illustrated monthly magazines such as the 
Half Century and the Favorite. 

51 



52 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

The Defender Is the dean of the weekly newspaper 
group, and it is said to reach more than 100,000 sub- 
scribers in southern states. A Carnegie foundation in- 
vestigator records his belief that the Defender, more than 
any other one agency, was the cause of the "northern 
fever" and the big exodus from the south in the last three 
years. It advocates race pride and race militancy and 
exhausted the vocabulary of denunciation on lynching, 
disfranchisement, and all forms of race discrimination. 

At some postoffices in the south it was difficult to have 
copies of the Defender delivered to subscribers. A col- 
ored man caught with a copy In his possession was sus- 
pected of "northern fever" and other so called disloy- 
alties. Thousands of letters poured into the Defender 
office asking about conditions in the north. 

This situation had a curious political reflex. A rumor 
arose. It traveled to Chicago and Washington. It said 
that sinister forces were operating to prevent negroes in 
the north and particularly In Chicago from returning to 
their former homes In the south. Down south the rumor 
traveled and was published to the effect that thousands of 
colored men and women were walking the streets of 
Chicago, hungry and without shoes, begging for trans- 
portation to Dixie, the home of the cotton blossoms that 
they were longing to see again. 

Lieut. W. L. Owen of the military Intelligence service 
at Washington was sent to Chicago to Investigate. He 
went to Dr. George C. Hall, a leader In several colored 
organizations, and asked, "What Is this undercurrent that 
is keeping the negroes In the north?" Dr. Hall answered, 
"There isn't any undercurrent. Everything Is in the open 
in this case. The trouble started when the Declaration 
of Independence was written. It says that every man has 



ABOUT LYNCHINGS 53 

a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So 
long as the colored people get more of those three things 
in the north than in the south they are going to keep com- 
ing, and they are going to stay." 

Dr. Hall told the intelligence officer that the situation 
reminded him of the reply of the colored band leader to 
Liza Johnson, who asked what was the occasion of the 
brass band's parading the streets one evening. The reply 
was, "Lordy, Liza, don't you know we don't need no 
occasion?" 

The declaration of Dr. Williams to the Baptist Minis- 
ters* association that eleven new members came from 
Vicksburg has a direct connection with a lynching story 
which is being widely circulated by the publicity or propa- 
ganda batteries of South State street, reaching at least 
1,000,000 of the illiterate colored people of the south. 
The story, for ingenious cruelty and with relation to the 
kind of barbarism that is worse for the practitioners than 
the victims, equals anything recited in recent European 
war atrocities or anything in the Spanish inquisition or 
more ancient days. 

In Vicksburg, in the third week in June, the story goes, 
a colored man accused of an assault on a white woman 
was placed in a hole that came to his shoulders. Earth 
was tamped around his neck, only his head being left 
above ground. A steel cage five feet square then was 
put over the head of the victim and a bulldog was put in- 
side the cage. Around the dog's head was tied a paper 
bag filled with red pepper to inflame his nostrils and eyes. 
The dog immediately lunged at the victim's head. Further 
details are too gruesome to print. 

Whatever may be the truth about this amazing story, 
it is published in newspapers of the colored people and is 



54 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

attested as a fact by Secretary A. Clement McNeal of 
the National Association for Advancement of the Color- 
ed People, whose local office is at 3333 South State street. 
The last named organization, the most militant in 
activities against lynching, will hold its annual convention 
next year for the first time in a southern city. It will go 
to Atlanta on invitation of the mayor of that city and on 
request of Gov. Dorsey of Georgia. This is one of sev- 
eral indfcations that the southern states are actively con- 
sidering steps to be taken to retain their negro popula- 
tion and to lessen the violence which threatens to become 
a habit in a number of communities. 



XII 
NEGRO CRIME TALES 

Outbreaks of race warfare reported from Washing- 
ton, D. C, cause leaders of the colored people In Chicago 
to place emphasis on two points. ( i ) That Washington 
has had a large Inflow of southern white population dur- 
ing recent years, while the regular army is known to have 
a larger proportion of whites from the southern states 
than from any other section; (2) that the reported 
clashes may be something else than racial hostilities and, 
perhaps, may be traced back to the same antagonisms 
as those which caused the sectional war from i860 to 
1865. 

John Hawkins, formerly with the federal department 
of justice and more recently In the second deputy superin- 
tendent's office of the Chicago police department, gives 
this view: 

"The newspaper reports of what is happening in 
Washington have most frequently indicated that the 
causes of the outbreaks were attacks by colored soldiers 
on white women. Though this Is a serious and sinister 
charge to repeat day after day In dispatches that go to the 
entire nation, the fact Is that there have been no support- 
ing details, no particulars of knowledge or information 
such as any court of law or any intelligent person requires 
before arriving at an opinion or a conviction. 

"In one instance a dispatch contained the following 
three sentences : 'Even while the rioting was at its height 

55 



56 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

early to-day reports of another attack upon a white wo- 
man came. Frightened away once, her assailant hid and 
seized her as she left her house. She escaped only when 
all but stripped of her clothing.' 

"Here we have the gravest sort of a charge. No 
names are given, no locations, no witnesses — a wild in- 
flammatory tale sent out on the swift wings of rumor and 
gabbled and tattled for the consumption of a nation of 
people struggling to set an example to the rest of the 
world on the value of self control during a great world 
crisis. 

*'In all cases where the old and familiar statement is 
made that 'a negro attacked a white woman,' let there be 
something more than this vague allegation. It has too 
often served to screen ulterior purposes. Unless such a 
statement is accompanied by names, dates and locations, 
and has at least a semblance of such facts as are required 
when a white man is similarly involved, it should be 
assumed that the vague allegations are camouflage be- 
hind which men are working to defeat the intent of the 
emancipation proclamation, men who hold to the feudal 
south's theory that the negro is biologically inferior to 
the white man." 

The Anti-Vilification society has been organized by 
colored men in Chicago who believe that the United 
States as a republic is headed in the right direction, but 
that there is being carried on persistent propaganda that 
can bring no good to the nation. Lieut. Charles S. Duke, 
colored, a graduate of Harvard university, and Edward 
H. Morris, an able colored lawyer who is reported to 
have a fortune close to $1,000,000, are among the officers 
of the organization. 

**A few days ago there was a lynching In a Mississippi 



NEGRO CRIME TALES 57 

town," said Lieut. Duke. "One New Orleans newspaper 
reported that the victim had confessed, while another 
newspaper said It was reported that he had confessed to 
a crime. On so vitally Important a matter as whether a 
man to be burned by a mob had confessed guilt the me- 
diums of public Information did not agree." 

A committee representing a number of organizations of 
colored people called on the Illinois state council of de- 
fense one day while the late war was on. They carried 
copies of a front page newspaper story wherein It was 
stated that at a north shore society event the hostess took 
particular pains not to shake hands with the members of 
the colored "jazz" orchestra. The members of the state 
council of defense recognized that the article was a gra- 
tuitous Insult to the colored people, and the continuance 
of such a news policy during the war might seriously 
affect the colored fighters and workers. 

Equality is a big word In the various public movements 
among the colored people. The following program 
adopted recently by the National Association for the 
Advancement of the Colored People contains In brief a 
statement of the kinds of equality they are seeking: 

1. A vote for every negro man and woman on the 
same terms as for white men and women. This Is accord- 
ed in practically all northern states, but not in the states 
south of Mason and Dixon's line. 

2. An equal chance to acquire the kind of an educa- 
tion that will enable the negro everywhere to use his vote 
wisely. 

3. A fair trial in the courts for all crimes of which 
he is accused by judges in whose election he has partici- 
pated, without discrimination because of race. 

4. A right to sit upon the jury which passes upon him. 



58 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

5. Defense against lynching and burning at the hands 
of mobs. 

6. Equal service on railroads and other public car- 
riers, this to mean sleeping car service, dining car service, 
Pullman service, at the same cost and on the same terms 
as other passengers. 

7. Equal right to the use of public parks, libraries 
and other community services for which he is taxed. 

8. An equal chance for a livlihood in public and 
private employment. 

9. The abolition of color-hyphenation and the sub- 
stitution of "straight Americanism.'* 



XIII 
COLORED GAMBLERS 

In South State street, in blocks near 35th street, there 
are colored men who stand on the sidewalk and pick out 
faces from the human stream flowing by. They saunter 
carelessly out" and meet these faces and speak words 
addressed to the ears adjusted behind the faces. These 
words usually are: "Try your wrist to-day? Try your 
wrist?" 

The Immemorial game of craps calls for wrist play. 
Of course. It Is entirely a matter of luck or fate, unless the 
dice are loaded, but the sidewalk cappers In South State 
street assume that It takes a skill of the human wrist to 
throw the requisite sevens and elevens that are necessary 
to what is technically known as a "killing." So they ask, 
"Try your wrist?" 

"Billy" Lewis for months has been running a place 
between 3510 and 3512 South State street, called the 
Pioneer club, where craps and poker are the attractions. 
The entrance is between two store buildings. A capper 
is usually in front day and night. From early In the after- 
noon till far in the morning players dribble in and out of 
this passageway, usually one customer at a time, occasion- 
ally two or three customers together, but generally every- 
thing looking quiet and orderly, though the attendance 
of the Pioneer club in the rear goes as high as seventy-five 
and 100 men when the "going" is good. 

This is not the only craps and poker enterprise con- 

59 



6o THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

ducted by "Billy" Lewis. He has another at 14 East 
35th street, where the second and third floors are used as 
a temple of the gods of chance. Also he has another at 
37 West 22d street. 

"Louie Joe" presides over craps at a place In the 3000 
block on South State street, second floor front. "Mexi- 
can Frank" has his establishment at 3436 South State 
street, second floor front. "Wiley" Coleman is in the 
same block on South State street, second floor front. 

It should be stated here that in most cases the neigh- 
boring shops, stores and flat dwellers do not enjoy the 
proximity of the poker and craps enthusiasts. In every 
instance where inquiry was made the neighbors said they 
wished the police would stop the games. 

W. M. Bass has been operating craps and poker games 
night and day in the rear of a real estate ofllice on East 
31st street, near Cottage Grove avenue. From an alley 
entrance at 3512 South State street, one may enter a 
temple of chance conducted by one McFallin. Two men 
known as "Williams" and "Kennedy" maintain a labor- 
atory for the study oF the laws of chance on South State 
street, near 35th street, entrances front and rear. T. 
Jones has a similar laboratory on South State street, near 
39th street, second floor, front and rear entrances. 

"From 22d street to 39th street on South State street 
there Is some kind of a game going here and there, usually 
craps and poker, and often day and night," said an in- 
formant who knows the district from constant residence 
in it and wide acquaintance. 

"I'm no reformer," he commented further, "I don't 
want to have the duty of changing what is In men's na- 
tures. But you can take it from me, they're going too far 
out here now. There ain't many places where the game 



COLORED GAMBLERS 6i 

IS square. The worklngman who falls for a capper and 
thinks he is going to try his wrist, he don't try his wrist at 
all. He goes up against dice that are fixed and cards 
that are marked and they take his money away from 
him." 

Now for the contrast. Take a look at the buddmgs 
where live some of the victims of the gamblers, who are 
naturally also the victims of the police who let the gam- 
blers run the kind of games that are run. 

A house to house canvass was made by a colored news- 
paper man of two blocks of residences or tenements in 
Dearborn street adjacent to the South State street craps 
and poker games. The figures jotted down in the note- 
book of this investigator have a special significance when 
it is recalled that it is from these tenements that the 
gambling houses get part of their customers. 

Within two blocks were found a total of eighty-three 
families where 96 per cent of the boys were truants from 
the public schools, and 72 per cent of these boys were 
retarded at least one year by reason of truancy. In 
most cases the parents were away from home so much 
that they were out of touch with the children. At sixty- 
two homes the condition of furniture, walls and ceilings 
was classified as "dilapidated." In five instances there 
was water dripping into a living room from a toilet room 
in bad order on a floor above. 

In thirty-one cases the father had "deserted," which 
means he is tired, dead, sick or gone wrong from un- 
known causes. In nineteen cases the father of the family 
was dead, and the mother was struggling with a variously 
sized brood of young ones. In twenty-eight cases the 
father was a heavy drinker. Three of the fathers were 
in jail and eleven homes were motherless. Forty mothers 



62 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

worked all day, twenty mothers were "heavy drinkers," 
to use the classification employed by this investigator. 
Forty-two refused to answer questions. 

The following sweeping summary was noted : 

"Fifty-one per cent of the cases revealed home broken 
by death, desertion, divorce, drink, promiscuous living 
or degeneracy, and cases where the deserted mother was 
found living in open shame before her children or where 
a father who is a widower was living in open shame 
before his children." 

Such are fragmentary notes of a district in which a 
Chicagoan might pick up as many "Broken Blossoms" as 
Thomas Burke found in one quarter of London. 

At the corner of 34th and South State streets the Rev. 
W. C. Thompson of the Pentecostal Church of Christ 
ended a street meeting that was rich and vibrant with 
melody. He explained that the police sometimes run him 
and his singers off the street, but the meetings would be 
kept up until the next time the police took such action. 

"New things is comin' altogether diverse from what 
they has been," said this preacher In a rush of eloquence, 
and twenty voices of men and women shook out irresist- 
ible and magnetic melody to a song called "After a 
While." The last stanza ran like this: 

"Our boasted land and nation is plunging in disgrace 
With pictures of starvation in almost every place, 
While plenty of needed money remains in horrid piles, 
But God's going to rule this nation after a while. 

After a while, 

After a while, 
God's going to rule this nation, after a while." 



XIV 
AN OFFICIAL OF THE PACKERS 

Among the employers, executives and superintendents 
of the packing houses, the clashes between white and 
colored people in the stockyards and adjacent districts 
are not a race question so much as a labor union question, 
according to a prominent official of one of the packing 
companies. 

This official sat in various conferences of yards officials 
and state, city and militia officers during the days of riot. 
He is familiar with the views of the officials of the large 
packing companies and believes that the following ex- 
pressions represent the general viewpoint of the packers. 

"In the yards It is not a race question at all. It is a 
labor union question. We have no objections to the ne- 
groes joining the union. We are running an open shop. 
The unions want us to run a closed shop. That would 
mean we could hire only union men. The unions have 
done everything to get the negro Into their membership, 
but they haven't got him. That Is the trouble. At one 
time, we heard, they had about 90 per cent of all the ne- 
groes In the yards in the unions. But they don't stay. 

"The trouble is that the negro Is not naturally a good 
union man. He doesn't like to pay union dues. 

"We are going to take back Into our employ all the 
{ negroes who are now away on account of the riots. Just 
now it is a good thing for those who have gone too far to 
cool off. If we should close down our plants for two 

63 



64 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

weeks many would realize more clearly what is needed in 
this hour. 

"There has never been any organized effort on our 
part to bring the negro here. The packers' percentage 
of increase of negro employes is not greater than that of 
any other industry during the war. The steel plants, the 
railroads and others increased about the same percentage 
we did. High wages was the inducement that drew them 
north. We expect that the negro will continue to be the 
chief source of surplus labor. In all our experience there 
have been no race clashes, no strictly racial trouble, inside 
of the yards while the men are working. Their work 
requires skill in the handling of axes, cleavers and knives 
and if there were any real and lasting race hatred, it 
would show itself in violence inside the yards where they 
work. 

"At the present time 21 per cent of the workers in one 
large plant are colored. During the war at the time of 
highest pressure they numbered from 24 to 25 per cent. 
Before the war they numbered 18 per cent. 

"With the negroes away as at present we are able to 
operate the plants at only 60 per cent capacity. This low- 
ered production and lessened amount of commodities for 
the market will have a measurable reflection in prices of 
food. It also affects the producers of our raw material. 
The farmer who had a bad experience marketing hogs 
last week when the shutdown was on because of the riots, 
may say to himself that hogs are not the best things to 
raise for market. 

"Our plant superintendents say that the white men 
want the colored workers back on some kinds of work. 
Take the beef luggers. They carry on their shoulders 



AN OFFICIAL OF THE PACKERS 65 

the quarters of beefs. Negroes have always been best 
at this." 

The following figures represent the distribution of na- 
tionalities and race among the employes of Armour & 
Co.: 2,052 Poles, 2,000 negroes, 1,372 Lithuanians, 
5,167 Americans, 141 Bohemians, 118 Jews, 669 Irish, 
41 Greeks, 300 Germans, 150 Slovaks, 56 Mexicans, 205 
Russians, 23 Scots, ^^ Italians. 

The employes of the other plants are said to be di- 
vided in about the same proportions. 



XV 
MR. JULIUS ROSENWALD INTERVIEWED 

At Sears, Roebuck & Co., where the volume of busi- 
ness is $200,000,000 a year, where they send out 8,000,- 
000 copies a year of the most widely circulated book in 
the United States — the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogue 
— there sits in the administration office the president of 
the company, Julius Rosenwald. 

In the midst of an array of wall photographs of Greek 
parthenons and Egyptian sphinxes there is a large photo- 
graph of Booker T. Washington, the negro race leader. 
Near at hand is a remarkable collection of books on 
the race question. 

"If we say the negro must stay in slums and shall 
not invade white residence districts, then we shall have 
to make more stringent health laws to protect us from 
the evils that go with slums," said Mr. Rosenwald. "If 
we say the negro must continue to live in slums, we must 
prepare for a brighter crime rate. 

"They came here because we asked them to come, be- 
cause they were needed for industrial service. There is 
no solution for the problem apparent now. That is all 
the more reason both sides must be fair. It will do no 
good to see red. 

"With immigration restricted, it will be necessary for 
business to seek another source of labor supply. This 
exists in the colored population. When they settle here 
and become workers in the community they have a right 

66 



MR. JULIUS ROSENWALD INTERVIEWED 67 

to a place to live amid conditions that insure health and 
sanitation. 

"I know from experience that the negroes are not anx- 
ious to invade white residence districts any more than 
white people are willing that they should come." 

The face of Julius Rosenwald softened. 

"The negro is the equal of the white man in brains,'* 
said Mr. Rosenwald. "I have talked with men who said 
they started with a theory that the negro is inferior, 
but when the facts were arrived at, there was no other 
conclusion to be derived from those facts than that the 
colored man is the equal in intelligence of the white man. 

"I attended the graduation ceremonies of this year's 
class at Hampton institute in May, the fifty-first anniver- 
sary of this negro institution. I heard Columbus^. 
Simango tell 'The South African's Story.' Here he was, 
straight from the jungles of Africa, a full blooded negro 
who came direct from Melsetter, South Rhodesia, to 
Hampton institute. His speech, his markings in classes, 
his general behavior showed intelligence and competency. 
He is a specimen of what can be accomplished by edu- 
cation. 

"He didn't know he wanted an education till he met 
a missionary who told him about Hampton. He walked 
200 miles to a port, and was started for America three 
times and then turned back by authorities. He arrived 
in America a grown young man, unable to read or write. 
And now he is able to pass any college examinations in 
America. 

"Another speaker was a Fisk university man, Isaac 
Fisher. He has taken thirty-two prizes offered by news- 
papers and magazines in competitions open to all with- 
out regard to color. While living in Arkansas, he wrote 



68 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat the twelve best reasons 
why Missouri Is the best state to live In, and was awarded 
the prize. Everybody's Magazine had a contest with 
3,000 competitors, and the award of $i,ooo was made to 
Isaac Fisher, a type of the pure negro, a little thin fellow 
who is all Intelligence." 

Mr. Rosenwald quoted Walter HInes Page, a south- 
erner, ambassador to Great Britain during the late war, 
"The most expensive thing we can do Is not to educate 
the negro." 

He quoted Booker Washington, from memory, as say- 
ing that in some southern states It was found that $i6 
per capita was spent on the education of white children 
in the public schools and $1.29 yearly on the colored 
children, and Washington's comment that such a dis- 
parity presumed too much on the intelligence of the eager 
blacks. 

There are now more than 300 Rosenwald rural schools 
in operation in southern states, 300 more partially estab- 
lished and 400 others projected. They are maintained by 
three cantrlbutors, Mr. Rosenwald, state treasuries and 
miscellaneous donors. 



XVI 
FOR FEDERAL ACTION 

The race question Is national and federal. No city 
or state can solve it alone. There must be cooperation 
between states. And there must be federal handling of it. 

This is the view of Major Joel E. Splngarn, recently 
returned from service under fire In France and later serv- 
ice in the occupied zone in Germany with the 311th In- 
fantry. Major Splngarn was for six years chairman of 
the National Association for the Advancement of the 
Colored People. 

*'What is now happening in Chicago has happened In 
other large cities, north and south, east and west," said 
Major Splngarn. ''With the Initial or igniting occur- 
rences out of consideration we have much the same de- 
velopments in every case where there are race riots. 
Everything considered, the character of the Chicago pop- 
ulation and the size of it, the total number of casualties 
is surprisingly low. 

*'The fact must now be emphasized that the race 
problem is not local, but is a national question. It should 
have federal attention, and there should be federal aid. 
We must frght as a national danger the race hatred that 
exists In the south. That particular form of race hatred, 
which was one fundamental cause of the civil war, should 
not be permitted to spread to other sections. 

"The southern neglect of the negro is a national prob- 
lem. All the conditions of life that tend to degrade the 

69 



70 THE CHICAGO RACE RIOTS 

negro In the south Immediately come Into evidence the 
moment there Is a shift of negro population from south 
to north. Every circumstance of bad housing, bad sani- 
tation, school neglect and economic inequality that exists 
In the southern states must be regarded as a national prob- 
lem, this more especially In view of the shifts of popu- 
lation that are so easy now and which are sometimes an 
absolute necessity for the conduct of industry. 

**There must be enlightenment of the Intelligent whites 
of America on all phases of this problem. The intelli- 
gent white man who Is not informed on the neglect and 
wrong training of the negro in the south is as dangerous 
to future peace and law and order as Is the so-called bad 
negro. I have fought for my country two years as a 
major of Infantry and I wish to give It as my mature 
judgment that no barbarities committed by the Prussians 
in Belgium will compare with the brutalities and atrocities 
committed on negroes In the south. In effect, you may 
say that the negroes who come north have issued from 
a system of life and Industry far worse than anything 
ever seen under Prussianism In Its worse manifestations. 

"Every colored soldier that I have talked with In 
France, Germany or America has a grievance. If there 
should be a development of bolshevism in this country, 
it is plainly evident where these soldiers, at least those 
with whom I have talked, would take their stand. 

*'One of the most significant features in the Chicago 
situation is the stockyards labor union, and the apparent 
good will between the two races among the thousands of 
white and colored men in that organization. I am told 
that about 60 per cent of the stockyard workers are 
Poles, and that their leader, John Kirkulski, as well as 
the secretary and the 500 shop stewards of the organiza- 



FOR FEDERAL ACTION 71 

tion, are taking a decisive stand against race prejudice, 
violence and anything else than peace and equality be- 
fore the law. 

*'If this is true and It should be found that among the 
70,000 men employed at the packing houses there has 
been no violence between white and colored union men, 
it may be that this is a high point in history. It Is grati- 
fying to hear that the employers at the stockyards recog- 
nized months ago that rivalries and bitterness between 
union white men and nonunion colored men would make 
a bad situation, and therefore they consented to the col- 
ored employment agencies recommending to all negroes 
applying for jobs that they should join the union. It Is 
evident that without these stabilizing influences Chicago 
might have had a slaughter running Into hundreds. 

*'A commission, consisting of men and women from 
both races, should be appointed to Investigate and make 
recommendations. Such a commission, if It has the right 
people on It, takes the thought of people away from 
violence. That was our experience in the Atlanta riots.'* 



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